


Old Ties and New Beginnings

by Frozen Linguaphile (Yashiko61)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Medical Procedures, Post-Canon Fix-It, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-30 18:11:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17833595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yashiko61/pseuds/Frozen%20Linguaphile
Summary: At first, retirement is a relief. But when Shiro reaches out to Keith when he begins to question stepping back from saving the universe, he doesn't expect to have to sort out his strained relationship with Keith quite so quickly.





	1. It Was Not Supposed to Be This Way

**Author's Note:**

  * For [psyraah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/psyraah/gifts).



> Written as part of the Sheithentines 2019 exchange, for Psy (Twitter: @starchydreams) who asked for whump.

At first, retirement was a relief.

It had taken just over two years following Allura’s sacrifice for Shiro to feel that the Galaxy Garrison was set up for its new role as the cornerstone in a new universal order. Officers who essentially came of age during the years of the occupation of Earth were now adapted and prepared for their ongoing role, which was much more than the simple defense and space exploration roles they initially signed up for as cadets.

Keith was the first of the paladins to take up roles that would keep them permanently off Earth, and he and the Blades of Marmora spearheaded the political and societal realignment of the Galra people. Undoubtedly it was vital work, but Shiro knew with sadness that the choices they made to be de facto leaders for Earth and the Galra respectively had all but sealed their fate as having separate life paths.

At first, Curtis was just a friendly presence that entered his life, with the two of them both part of a cadre of young but over-experienced senior officers who formed an informal social circle that by and large ran parallel to that of the paladins. Ship life has always been a path to forging close bonds.

After Honerva’s defeat, the Atlas renewed its mission as the flagship for Earth interests, and Curtis was there. And Voltron wasn’t. So when friendship became… more, well, Keith was no longer present.

When Curtis asks one night, as they lounge on the coveted couch in Shiro’s quarters, if he was open to marriage, the question took him by surprise. The thought of truly settling down had been pushed to the back of his brain for so long that it was nearly a foreign concept. Before Kerberos, he might have said that it was his intention once his body was no longer capable of furthering his dreams of space. Indeed, that was the plan when he got engaged to Adam. Years later, with the knowledge that he was saddled with a slightly battered but not terminally ill body, the prospect of a long future ahead of him was something that he finally had time to consider again.

A month later, after hearing that Keith had accepted yet another term leading humanitarian efforts with the Blades now that Krolia and Kolivan were settled as the elected Galra representatives to the coalition, Shiro said yes, and then submitted his resignation.

Pidge, being the closest of the paladins at the time, was characteristically blunt, telling him that he was a fool to rush into marriage. He would simply reply that it was his choice to make.

Keith, and the others, all showed up for the wedding six months later. Shiro knew all too well that the practiced smile on Keith’s face was a facade, but the genuine contentment on his new husband’s face and the promise of an opportunity to settle down and focus on things closer to home was intoxicating. So when Keith slipped off planet quietly the morning after, and was not seen again by any of the paladins until the next reunion dinner under the shadow of Allura’s statue, he felt it best not to appear too nosy.

Keith had essentially singlehandedly transformed the Blades of Marmora into a new, and largely humanitarian organization. Although they continued with intelligence gathering and limited peacekeeping, by and large their mission was to determine the immediate needs of the many planets left to their own devices as the Galra empire crumbled. It was daunting work, and even Krolia could go months without contact as he moved from system to system, weaving smaller fact finding missions in between massive strategic planning sessions and hands on work with teams on planets across the galaxy.

Shiro took up a part time teaching position at a nearby civilian university, taking on the role of house-husband while teaching fundamentals of leadership theory three afternoons a week. It came naturally to him, although it was often easy to forget that his students were not cadets. Still, on quiet mornings, as he sits with legs tucked under the kotatsu that dominates the living room floor, he marvels at having time to read for pleasure and to finally learn to cook, although both Hunk and his husband are regularly horrified at his less than stellar attempts in the kitchen.

It was all the things he never bothered with before, when time was not on his side and he was determined to achieve everything he could in case his body couldn’t go on.

He never managed to think much about a future with Adam. But he was determined to make up for that now.

As the first few months of retirement turned into the first couple years, Shiro came to the crashing realization that perhaps he had been naive. It began as each of them gradually taking on side projects that required solo travel for their careers, and eventually was them leading largely independent lives while living under the same roof. When Curtis came home one day and announced that he had received a new and better posting that would take them to the New England area, Shiro balked.

He was just about to start a new term of teaching, and two years of being slightly less religious about staying fit had made him all too aware of how the cold just seeps into every abused part of his body to ache. And there was few parts that were not abused. But these were just excuses. Fundamentally, he was taken aback that Curtis would arbitrarily decide to apply without telling him, without asking him, and it was this that stung the hardest.

What should have been a calm and logical discussion turned into a full on argument, with angry and hurtful accusations lobbed both ways. Shiro sleeps under the kotatsu’s warm quilt while Curtis fumes in the bedroom, and by dawn Curtis is gone to the base and does not return until almost four days later. From their kitchen, in a low voice, all he says to Shiro is this: “I think we need some space.”

Over a week later from a hotel room, Shiro does what he had sworn to himself that he wouldn’t. When Keith isn’t around to receive a subspace comm message, he calls Krolia. The slight evil eye he gets from her is probably justified, but she lets him stumble through.

“So, I think I need some time to think. Maybe a trip somewhere. You wouldn’t happen to know where Keith is right now, would you?”

\---

When a Blade operative shows up mere hours later and tells him to bring his bags, Shiro was not expecting to suddenly take the first off-planet trip in nearly three years other than the annual pilgrimage to New Altea. Yes, he had sort of implied that he was up for just such a thing, but he was retired. Things were not supposed to happen this quickly.

The small Marmora ship pops out of the wormhole above a planet that Shiro doesn’t recognize, but the mid-sized Galra base in orbit has been converted over to a regional headquarters of sorts for the Blades. He’s ushered to an office that must belong to Keith - spartan and barely personalized, the only real indicator of its owner is a panoramic photo of the desert, the view coming from the porch of his father’s shack.

He’s alone for nearly an hour by the time he hears voices approach the door, and he moves away from behind the desk as though he had been caught with his fingers in a cookie jar.

“Yes, I heard you-” Keith’s voice rings out, “- But I have to finish preparing for a mission, and I didn’t have plans to meet with anyone here until after I get back.” The door slides open, and Keith stalls at the threshold, clearly surprised.

“Shiro.”

“Uh, hi Keith.”

A deep breath. “I would ask how you got into my office, but in the grand scheme of things I think we are beyond that already.”

Shiro is feeling self conscious in a way that he hasn’t in years. “That would be fair,” he admits.

“So,” Keith plunks down in his chair with an air of indifference that Shiro is all too well aware is a blatant lie, “How did you manage to get out here, mister ‘I am retired and have almost completely sworn off interplanetary travel’ Takashi Shirogane?”

He decides to ignore the passive aggressive use of his full name. “I may have asked your mother where you were up to nowadays.”

The expression on Keith’s face twinges a little. Shiro tries to shrug.

“And so she just sent you on your way here instead of, I don’t know, passing on my current comm frequency like a normal person?”

“To be fair, I was sort of expecting something more along those lines myself.”

“Okay, so you are here. What gives?”

“Curtis and I decided that we need some time apart,” he says. Keith’s eyes narrow slightly but he gestures at the other chair in the room that Shiro has been avoiding.

“Shiro, I am not interested in being your rebound,” Keith says curtly, perhaps a bit unfairly.

“God, no.” Shiro flops into the seat with a frustrated grunt. “Keith, not even two weeks ago I thought things were going well, better than they were. Apparently I wasn't paying enough attention. Curtis applied for a base transfer without even checking with me, and we fought. It brought out a lot of resentments I don’t think either of us realized we had bottled up.”

Keith gestures ‘go on’.

“I couldn’t reach you via the last comm info I had for you so I checked with Krolia. I didn’t intend to get an express trip out here.”

“Shiro, I am due to head out tomorrow to basically do an, erm, quiet tour of our minor operations. It might take a couple weeks, it could be a month. As lovely as it is for my mom to assume that I could play host for a few days while you figure out your shit, I can’t put this off.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to.”

“I will make arrangements for you to get back to Earth. It might not be as direct as your trip here, pretty much anything that makes it out this far needs to make at least a couple stops to drop off supplies. But that’s all I can promise. Now let me get you guest quarters for tonight.” Keith stands up abruptly, and leaves Shiro alone and with his stomach twisted into a knot.

\---

“Krolia! I can’t believe you just foisted him on me!”

She smothers a smirk. “I don’t know what you are referring to, Keith, you must be more specific.” Keith swears he hears a smothered laugh in the background that sounds like Kolivan and it just makes his blood boil further. Cosmo paces behind her, ear twitching at the sound of Keith's upset voice.

“You managed to send Shiro on a one-way trip out here just because he had an argument with his husband, and now I have to figure out how best to get him on his way back home.”

“Keith, for years you two were each other’s confidants,” she tries to soothe, “He was shaken up and upset when he contacted me, and I thought some time away from Earth might do him good.”

“You knew damn well that I was about to be mostly out of communication for a month. Was that why you suddenly redirected a regular shuttle from its scheduled route to a super-express?”

“We talked about this, you both pushed each other away after Shiro decided to get married.”

“What I am I supposed to do? Cancel my carefully planned mission so I can hand hold him for the next week and say ‘I hope you and Curtis make up’ when I drop him off at Earth with a hug like the last three years or so never happened? It’s already awkward enough to sit through the annual dinner with him and the others. He moved on. I moved on.”

“And now he needs a friend more than ever.”

“I spent the last two months planning this mission. I can’t just leave it to someone else. There isn’t another senior Blade available to check in on all of our minor operations in this sector, and I’ve-”

“Take him with you.”

“-been so busy, sorry, what?”

“I said, take him with you. He needs to figure things out, and you could use a second set of hands you don’t have to, oh what is the Earth expression, babysit.” Krolia smiles at him all smug, and Keith doesn’t know if he should cry or hang up on his mom in frustration.

“Mom, he showed up with about three turtleneck sweaters and a terrible attempt at a goatee that was never going to look good on him.”

“It only takes 12 vargas to replicate a suit, no one needs to be any wiser.”

“Oh, put him in a Blade of Marmora suit now? Right, and no one will question the one with no actual blade and a missing arm.” His voice is nearing hysterical, and he doesn’t like this one damn bit.

\---

As it turns out, there isn’t a single scheduled shuttle that could bring Shiro back to Earth in anything less than four Earth weeks, and no matter how annoyed he was that his mother had foisted Shiro on him in a stunningly devious ploy on her part, Keith was not so petty as to let the now retired admiral twiddle his thumbs on an excruciatingly long ride home.

Shiro’s been banished to a set of guest quarters for nearly two vargas when Keith shows up with a meal tray on hand, and a small bottle of something that tastes akin to whiskey and burns twice as fiercely.

Shiro is lounging on the bed in a pair of sleep pants and a hoodie that nearly covers the shoulder port of his prosthetic arm. He looks embarrassed as hell but gratefully stands up and grabs the tray.

“Thanks, I was starving but I didn’t know where I could go, well, unescorted. Before I get sent on my way.”

“Yeah, about that,” Keith says, pouring a finger of amber liquid into each glass, “It could take a few weeks to get you back without diverting a ship well out of the way.”

“Oh,” Shiro says, poking at the bowl of stew to avoid looking Keith in the eyes.

“I normally would never do this, but if you come with me I might be able to shave a week off that. It’s not perfect, but I don’t want to keep you away longer than you need to.”

“I thought you said you would be on a mission.”

“Yes. Most of it is routine, just checking in on outposts, small humanitarian missions, that sort of thing.”

“Wouldn’t I just get in your way?” Shiro asks in a careful tone, between mouthfuls of food. Keith pushes one of the glasses of liquor closer to him and he takes a cautious sniff before grimacing. “What the hell is this stuff?”

“Moonshine is not as rare in the universe as we would sometimes like to think it is. It’s not as nasty as nunvil, if that is what you are wondering.” Shiro takes a small sip and nearly coughs as it burns all the way down. The glass is quickly abandoned on the table. “And to answer your question, yes, Shiro, you’ll be in the way, but if we have to haul you all the way home again, we might as well use some of your skills. Congrats, you get to be a provisional Blade all the way back to Earth, and then you can go back to being a retired homemaker if you can smooth things over with him.”

Shiro’s aghast expression stands in comparison to Keith’s seemingly begrudging acceptance of the situation. He might have had Shiro foisted on him but he was damn well going to try and make the best of it.

“Shit, I was supposed to start teaching the next term next week,” he suddenly groans.

“I’ll get you a priority sub-space comm channel to call the university, but if you are done eating, you have a date with a full body scanner first. Where we are going, you need a space suit.” Keith picks up Shiro’s abandoned glass and downs the last swallow of liquid, ignoring the burn as he leads the taller man out of the room.

\---

Shiro, as he awkwardly stands in the buff in the scanner, is exceedingly aware that although by most standards had not let himself go, he had let himself go. Oh, he was still fit, and regularly ran 10k, did weights, and occasionally made it out to a mixed martial arts dojo for some variety, but the six pack and defined biceps (sorry, bicep) had softened to a gentle contour, and he probably had gained 12 kilograms in the last few years. He should not be embarrassed, but surrounded by a ship full of soldiers in peak physical condition (and Keith, who has finally filled out the last vestiges of his teenage awkwardness to be something else entirely) he feels woefully lax.

He had vague hopes that what Keith meant by ‘space suit’ was some sort of less form fitting generic thing that at most would be modified for the arm. In the privacy of the room he was assigned for the night, he lays down, bemoaning the firm bed that Galra seemed inclined to prefer. In the end, he lays awake well into the ship’s ‘night’ period, only nodding off a couple hours before Keith pages him and a Blade shows up at the door as an escort.

With bleary eyes, he stumbles to the mess hall, and eyes what appears to be a caffeinated beverage that neither looks or smells like coffee. It is bitter with tannins, but it wakes him up just enough to make it through a meal of a gruel and some sort of fruit before he is led back to the room, where Keith is already waiting for him.

While he swaps his glasses out for contacts, Keith tears through his duffle bags without discussion, sorting his things into two piles which he can only assume are ‘things he will need before he gets back to Earth’ and everything else.

“I can't believe you brought a sweater vest with you to space,” Keith mutters.

“Hey, I work at a university. Dress clothes come with the territory,” Shiro protests. “They’re practical, and I don't need to get them altered.”

Keith rolls his eyes as the non-essentials are packed tightly into a shipping crate, and another Blade comes by to presumably pack it away into Keith’s small personal ship. He’s left with a pile of underwear, workout clothing, and a couple casual outfits.

A package shows up unannounced. Keith accepts it at the door, and when it is just the two of them alone again, orders Shiro to strip down to his briefs. A form fitting Marmora undersuit is handed over to him. So much for a generic civilian space suit. Still, as he pulls it on, he’s surprised at how well it fits for a first try, the fabric supportive and snug like the Garrison flight suit he had when he was captain of the Atlas. The outer casing of the shoulder port goes over the arm opening and seals it shut, and Keith hands over the chest plate and arm bracer.

“Come sit down,” Keith says, matter of factly. “The mask needs to pair with the suit, and the first time it can be disorienting.”

A smaller box is opened, to reveal the mask, fringed on the outside with a fine lace like mesh of nanofibers. Shiro pulls on the offered hood that covers all but his face, and the bottom seam where it fits to the neck of the undersuit seals together with a slight buzz.

Keith shifts some of Shiro’s bangs under the edge of the hood, keeping the hair out of his eyes. “I’m going to help position the mask. You’ll need to give it a couple tries before the filters will let air pass. Don’t panic, it just needs a moment while it merges with the hood and suit. After it is paired, the mask and hood can be dissolved at will.”

The back side of the mask, as it lays in Keith’s hands, reveals a continuous mesh, and there is a slight soft looking ring around where it will press around his nose and mouth. The eye pieces are opaque and dark for the moment, but he knows they will power on once the hood merges with the rest of the suit and connects to the power supply.

Keith holds the mask up cradled in one hand, adjusting the edges back before hooking the seal under his chin and tilting it until it is pressed to his face. The mesh edges are smoothed to the hood, and when the tingling ends, he takes a tentative first breath, then another, and another again before he can breathe freely. The air smells vaguely of new plastics, but there is almost no dead space between his mouth and nose to the filter ports. The eyepieces power on a split second later, and he can see Keith inspect the mask and seal.

“Shiro, I need you to will the mask off. Think it through, like summoning the shield with your paladin armour.”

He concentrates for a moment, and it dissolves off, the sensation tingling as his hair springs back to its usual form, freed from where it was pressed against his forehead.

“Well, there you go. Oh, I guess there is one last thing before we can take off. Come with me.”

Shiro follows Keith without talking, ignoring the curious stares from every Blade they pass in the corridors. He’s led into an armoury off a training hall, and Keith thoughtfully scans the offerings in one end of the room.

“A real Marmora blade would not work for you for obvious reasons, but we have these training ones with real edges that are nearly just as good.”

“Keith,” he starts, stumbling over his words.

“Shiro,” Keith turns to him with an odd expression Shiro has rarely seen on him. “I hope that this will be an uneventful few weeks, and that at best you will just get to stand there and watch while I check up on things. But I have seen calm situations go to hell in a heartbeat, and this should not surprise you in the least. And besides, the local populations we are likely to meet with will probably have no idea what a human is supposed to look like, and may not know that one of the former paladins of Voltron is missing an arm, but they _will_ notice if this supposed Blade of Marmora does not have a blade of some type. So come, and pick yours.”


	2. A So-Called Working Vacation

A week into his not really voluntary 'working vacation', Shiro is starting to wonder if taking the milk run would have been a better choice for getting back to Earth. Keith alternates between pointedly ignoring him on the ship and using him as a sherpa at each stop. Most of the time they are at an outpost or humanitarian mission site for at most a couple hours each, just long enough for Keith to get a briefing and for Shiro to sort the smaller cargo, generally medicines that get loaded on and off the compact ship.

Keith’s determined silence feels like a slap in the face. Shiro is well aware that there is simmering resentment at play, but he thought that things were more cordial between the two of them. Keith certainly gave that impression at the annual reunion, but perhaps that was just a pretence.

Or maybe he just just wilfully blind to it. It wouldn’t be the first time recently, he thinks bitterly as he leans against a crate, the suffocatingly tight fitting mask covering his face just adding to his irritation. He was determined to try not to look too out of place, and although he was always going to be a good number of inches taller than Keith, he still appeared too short statured for a Galra male.

To top it off, the one handed sword tucked between his shoulder blades feels like a hinderance more than a help. To be honest, if he actually needed to defend himself (or Keith) he probably would have prefered a bladed staff, maybe something akin to a naginata. But a long staff would have been even more of a nuisance.

Keith emerges from the building, and makes a beeline for the ship’s hatch. Shiro, recognizing the hurried gait, quickly follows. Keith is sitting at the compact computer console by the time his mask dissolves, hair poking out from all directions under the hood. Shiro gratefully lets his own mask disappear, and a light touch on Keith’s shoulder simply elicits a frustrated sigh.

“What’s wrong?” Shiro asks.

Keith is pulling up reports on the computer, but spares a quick glance over his shoulder. “Just got word that another system is on the verge of a riot. We were supposed to stop there in three quintants but we need to get going there as soon as I can read the status report.”

“Did you want me to start the pre-flight checks?” Shiro asks, cautiously. Keith had yet to let him pilot, although there was a hard copy of the checklist written in English in Keith’s messy scrawl clipped to the console.

“No,” Keith says firmly, also far too quickly as though out of instinct, but he immediately regrets the reaction and his brow wrinkles in frustration. “Sorry, I meant, I will get to it-”

“Keith, let me help. You don’t have to do everything.” Shiro doesn’t intend for his tone to harken back to when he was a junior officer, and Keith a young teenager that he was mentor to, but Keith acquiesces after a split moment and gives a short gesture in the direction of the front of the ship that Shiro interprets as consent.

“The checklist is-”

“In the cockpit. I know,” Shiro replies. “I just need to bring in one crate, then we can go.” The mask reforms over his face and he looks over the ship once on the outside before bringing in the last item and securing the hatch. Sliding into the co-pilot seat, he snags the checklist in its plastic cover and begins to power up the propulsion and navigation systems. Keith joins him in the pilot seat by the time the engine is primed, and they take off and jump through the wormhole as soon as they clear atmosphere.

It’s an awkward silence between them as the ship travels through the star system, but Shiro can’t handle letting the tension remain between them any longer when he turns to Keith and speaks up.

“We need to talk.”

“About what?” Keith’s tone is defensive.

“About this. How I can’t even speak to you without getting my head nearly ripped off. I get it, I obviously did something that you interpreted as pushing you away.”

Keith just snorts as though that was the most obvious statement ever.

“But here is the thing, I am here, right now, and given that you volunteered to bring me back home on the condition that I help out on the way, well, I can’t do that if you will barely spare me a word or two.”

“What so you want me to tell you Shiro? That I am willing to put the last few years magically behind us? Yes, you pushed us all away until we were useful to you again.”

“Until you were useful to me? What on earth do you mean by that?”

“Ever since we got back to Earth, you got distant. And when you decided to get married, it was like you couldn’t be bothered keeping in touch.”

“Keith, you went off planet and out of contact within a month of when Allura… left us. Until your mother was established as the formal Galra representative, there wasn’t even a consistent way to forward on non-essential messages to you. Aside from the annual reunion, most of us couldn’t reach you even if we wanted to without jumping through hoops. I wasn’t going to clog up resources calling you to waste your time, not when you said how important the work was for you.”

“Shiro,” Keith’s voice is clogged with emotion. “It was even earlier than that. When I got you back, within days you went over to the Green lion and I-”

“Keith,” Shiro reaches over and places a hand on his knee, coaxing him to turn to face Shiro who shifts off his seat to kneel before him. “I have had a lot of time over the last week to think about this. When you and Allura pulled my consciousness from the astral plane and into this body, my link to Black was severed. I was so tired and weak at first, but when that faded the loss of that connection was overwhelming. It was easier to be in the green lion. It was not so raw a sensation.”

Keith lets out a shuddered breath, but doesn’t say anything, so Shiro takes it as an opportunity to continue.

“When we finally made it back to Earth, the demands of my time from the Garrison leadership was intense. None of the rest of you were commissioned before we disappeared, and it took me and Sam Holt hours of arguing with the remaining admiralty to even let the four of you into the briefings, let alone Allura and Coran. And then on top of everything, Adam...”

“Was dead, I know,” Keith says in a low voice.

There is an awkward pause, and Shiro shifts so he is sitting on the floor, forehead rested on Keith’s knees. Keith lays a hand on his shoulder and wipes away a rogue tear from his eye with the other hand.

“I did not have the luxury of time to deal with everything,” Shiro says without looking up. “Coming back to life after being trapped in the astral plane, dealing with a world that had gone on without me, hell, dealing with reconciling two sets of memories that included hurting you.”

“I don’t know how to respond to you right now,” Keith says in an uneven voice. “You never talked to me about this.”

“By the time I could, you were gone for the first of many missions with the Blades. And I couldn’t follow you, until I thought it was too late.” Shiro pushes away, struggling to keep his own emotions from overwhelming him. “We both are at fault, Keith, but I can only apologize for my part.”

A beep from the console interrupts them before Keith can reply, and his head snaps up so that Shiro can see that his eyes are rimmed with red. “Shit,” he grumbles, pushing up from the seat and storming off past Shiro to the small wash station to wipe his face with a wet cloth. “We are almost there."

Shiro rubs his face with the backside of his gloved hand, before shifting onto his knees again and then to standing with a grunt. “Tell me what you need me to do here, Keith. We need to talk again, soon, but this mission needs to come first.” He snags the abandoned face cloth from the sink and scrubs his face, clipping it next to the mirror where it was supposed to go in the first place.

Keith’s already back at the pilot seat, pulling the harness straps on in jerky motions. “Buckle up, this planet always has strong turbulence at high altitudes,” he says with a tone that clearly implies that their other conversation is not over yet. ”This planet is a bit of a shit show, more than most.”

Shiro is tightening the harness straps by the time the first wave of turbulence hits, and he pulls up the radar scans on the console in front of him.

“Local control more or less defaulted to the former sub-commander of the mining extraction operation, and while minor warlords are not uncommon by any means, it has been unusual that the locals were so evenly divided between those willing to accept assistance with setting up a more democratic long term governance structure, and those wanting to let the sub-commander continue to lead a de facto dictatorship. The two groups have basically been in a civil war since.”

“I thought the Blades were largely staying out of these cases, just coming in when there was more strictly humanitarian needs?” Shiro asks, before calling out a course correction to avoid a particularly bad pocket of weather.

“We got involved with this one early on, because this planet was always going to be reliant on alternative food production or imports. But most of the population has been here for over 500 years, so just moving them was not an option that they wanted to pursue. One faction knows it needs to have a legitimized government in place to secure trade deals with other independent systems in the area, the other, well, is sure that the Galra Empire will magically pop back into existence and they better be ready for them to be accepted back into the folds. Like that will happen, but we are talking an undereducated grunt class that had centuries of being pushed around as their only example of how to run things.” Keith’s tone is bitter and dark.

“So what happened that we, sorry, you needed to be here so quickly?” Keith gives Shiro a side glance at the slip, but his eyes snap forward to focus on piloting them down to the surface. Shiro can see valleys and mountains appear below them as the cloud cover begins to thin out.

“We got a report of all the children and the, oh how to say it, support caste on the planet, getting gathered up in a couple town squares. My lead operative on the ground that was observing hesitated to call it a hostage situation, but it is getting there.”

“Who all do the Blades have down there?”

“Just a couple leading mediation efforts and a team that oversees aid distribution. Only half a dozen. We are stretched too thin to have more.”

“I want you to tell me what you want me to help with,” Shiro says, knowing his tone might come off as blunt.

“Honestly, if it is what the reports say, I need you to keep an eye out on me and the negotiating team. It is likely to get intense, and you know that it is hard to have eyes out everywhere.” Keith sighs in resignation. “I wish I didn’t have to ask this of you.”

“Well, I am here now.” Shiro can see a settlement appear in the distance, and Keith brings them down to rest on a small air strip not far away. A pair of blades meet them with a vehicle, and Shiro assumes that they are the humanitarian aid coordinators. They both give him an odd look, but Shiro tries his best to act the role.

The ride into the first town is surreal, the expected hustle and bustle of people living their lives conspicuously absent. There is the odd work crew here and there, but they avoid looking up while the vehicle passes by.

The community hall dominates one side of the plaza, the administrative centre the other. Shiro’s instincts are to investigate the hall, but their group is met almost immediately at the other building.

‘Focus,’ he tells himself, and follows from the back of the group.

If the town itself was quiet, it is eerily silent inside. He cannot see any workers until they reach a room that Shiro can only think to call a mid-sized banquet hall. A long table dominates the room. The lead negotiator from the Blades sits with Keith on one end, and a pair of representatives from each group sit facing each other.

A scared looking cook hastily delivers mugs of water. Neither Keith nor the other Blade drop their masks, but the youngest of the pair that Shiro assumes is representing the group that seeks diplomatic government picks up his mug, downing the clean water as though he had gone a long time without.

The conversation starts up, and Shiro pointedly looks about the room. The layout is less than ideal, the main entrance too far away, the side door audibly locking when not in use. Windows let in copious light from the other side of the room, casting long shadows on the dusty and limited decorations.

The room was designed more for practical reasons, not aesthetics.

Shiro and two more Blades make up a small portion of the security presence. There is a handful of former Galran military, selected more for brute strength than intellect or independent thinking from the looks of it. The other two are young men, fit but untrained. Their nervous glances around the room betray their lack of experience.

The conversation has devolved into an argument, largely predictable in its content. Grievances over attempts to maintain the imposed caste system are countered with claims that the majority of the population of this isolated planet is too uneducated, too weak to ever rule themselves effectively.

The human part of Shiro wants to interrupt, and give both sides a good shake. There is always a need for a police or protective element to any society, but a strongman led dictatorship was what got the Galra into millenia of war in the first place.

To Keith’s credit, he outwardly appears calm, and the other Blade carefully notes issues. But when the fact that members of the support caste have been slowly rounded up and ‘encouraged’ to go to the community hall for an important announcement, the strongman just sneers and the nervous and anxious looks of the other group turn to panic.

“I should kill you all for your insolence!” the former sub-commander declares with a sneer. Shiro immediately eyes the two Galra guards who have adjusted their stances, hands resting over their weapon holsters.

From a corner of his eye, Shiro barely notices one of the Galra guards whisper into his collar.

“What are you doing?” the older representative of the support caste yells out. “We agreed that there must be no violence!”

“It is too late for that!” The sub-commander. “You clearly had no intention of doing what we must. Your weak compatriots will die for you insolence.”

A loud click from the direction of the windows pushes Shiro into action, pulling the older rep down and under the sturdy table. The sub-commander has turned to aim a blaster at Keith, and all he knows before the building blows is that the shot he hears is not from the blaster, but behind him.

The young representative stands there, hands shaking around a gun. Shiro’s eyes meet his terrified face for a split second.

And then the room implodes.


	3. We Nearly Lost it All

Keith comes to awareness with a start, a heavy weight across his torso and legs. His right ear rings so loudly with tinnitus that he almost doesn’t notice that the left is barely hearing anything at all. He’s sore and ready to puke, and would feel so much better if he could just get whatever it is off of him-

 _Shiro_.

It’s Shiro.

Shiro must have thrown himself over him, and as they lay in the rubble while dust rains upon them, Keith frantically calls up the connection to the biosensors in Shiro’s suit on the heads up display. The text, meant to appear as though it is a few feet in front of him looks nauseatingly warped from his blocked view, but Keith hurriedly pushes Shiro off of him in a rolling motion when the display comes up in a sea of angry red warnings.

‘THORACIC INJURY, BLOOD PRESSURE LOW, O2 SAT LOW’ the most urgent readings show. The dust is so thick that he does not dare override Shiro’s mask off, the internal oxygen supply likely the only thing keeping him breathing.

Keith doesn’t have that luxury, the mask dissolving off his face just as his stomach heaves, and he wretches to the side in between pained coughs that are more felt than heard. His head pounds with each heartbeat in a horrible feedback loop that lasts over a minute before he can compose himself enough for the mask to reform and filtered air eases his lungs.

Shiro hasn’t moved a twitch, except to heave frantic, ineffectual breaths. There is a tear in the undersuit just below the chest plate, and when Keith notices the distinctive wound, he frantically pushes Shiro on to his side, revealing the matching wound on the back.

A gunshot wound. Someone actually used a fucking projectile weapon. Keith’s trying to pull up the comms when he realizes he can barely hear his own voice calling for help.

He can’t wait for them, and stumbles upright, looping his hands under Shiro’s armpit and shoulder port, pulling him just up enough to drag him to one side of the room where they were less exposed.

The thud of a fellow Blade landing next to him is unheard but felt, and Keith is so startled that he loses his grip on Shiro, who crumples into his lap as Keith lets out a yelp that betrays his frantic and overwhelming fear based instincts.

Two hands grab his shoulders and urgently press them as though to say ‘calm down now’ before the other Blade and him pull Shiro up again and begin to climb out of the building’s foundation. The bodies of both sets of representatives lay clearly dead near them, and there is nothing Keith can do about it.

Two more of the Blades are pulling the lead Blade negotiator towards the vehicle. They bounce down the road at top speed, and climb onto the ship, and Keith is never so grateful to collapse to the hard deck plating as he is now that the hatch seals and the engines rumble below him.

He only affords himself a moment to look around, the headcount revealing that miraculously all of them were safely on the small vessel as it takes off and climbs to low orbit. Keith’s fingers scrabble away at the edge of Shiro’s mask, and it dissolves away.

His face is paler than Keith has ever seen it before, lips damn near blue tinged. He has almost pushed himself to his feet when one of the Blades drops beside him with the emergency trauma kit, and after consulting the biosensor readings, carefully checks Shiro’s mouth then seals an emergency respirator over the mouth and nose.

The first assisted breath causes Shiro to cough and cough, although the sound of it was all lost in a blur of ringing in Keith’s ears. His own mask dissolves again and a careful touch to his left ear reveals a trail of blood; one eardrum was surely ruptured and the other likely damaged in the blast.

The ship shudders as it climbs, but as soon as they break from the upper atmosphere a wormhole opens in the sky, spitting out a large cruiser that has been summoned to deal with this wretched planet and its wretched civil war.

He helps pull the backing off a pressure bandage and frantically adheres it to Shiro’s chest while the other blade does the same to the wound on the back. When they lay Shiro onto his back again, his dark grey eyes, clouded in pain, open a crack and Keith almost cries in relief.

“Shiro!” he smiles, knowing his voice is probably either shot or far too loud. He cannot hear if Shiro responds, but the lightest of squeezes of his hand in return is enough that hope washes over Keith in waves. Shiro’s eyes pinch shut in pain.

The ship docks with a larger Marmoran battleship that had been ‘borrowed’ from a now disposed commander. Most of such vessels came with an inherited crew, so it was not unusual to see a mix of Blades, former military types that had agreed to swear allegiance, and a few civilians that filled specialist positions.

A team of medics swoop in, lifting Shiro onto a gurney that is rushed off before Keith can even stand. The nausea creeps over him again, and he barely suppresses the urge to vomit on the clean hangar floor as he is helped off the ship. He pushes them off, but after a few staggered steps, he reluctantly accepts assistance again. His balance is totally shot, and he will only admit to himself that he more likely than not has a heck of a concussion.

He cannot see Shiro in the medical bay when he is helped in, although he cranes his head around while his suit is peeled off. He’s coaxed to lay on his side and the thick, cold gel squirted into his ear without warning makes him yelp and shudder. A dressing is taped over his ear without further ado, and he’s flipped to the other side where it is repeated. The second ear filling with medicinal gel is no less pleasant, but he’s allowed to lay flat while a full body scan catalogues his injuries.

When he can sit up again, he glances over the medic’s shoulder to squint at the readout. Blotches of red around his ribs, and the head is lit up, but otherwise mostly fine. It checks out with how he is feeling now that the adrenaline is fading.

A bowl of thin porridge makes an appearance, and he is coaxed to eat half of it before he pushes it away. A data pad is placed in his hands, the text simply reads ‘Your companion is in surgery and then will have treatment for his wounds. It is too early to say more than that. You must rest.’

Companion? Keith rolls his eyes at the term, although he is never really sure if this sort of thing is a lost in translation moment or not. He moves to swing his legs off the bed, but when he nearly falls into the medic, he tells himself that a few minutes sleep, if Shiro is hidden away in a surgical suite, won’t hurt him.

\---

The medic leads Keith down the corridor, walking slowly as he stubbornly follows although his legs and chest ache, and each step makes his head pound more. He clutches the blanket around his shoulder in defiance of the chill that permeates his bones. Keith needs to see Shiro, then he can go back and sleep more.

The pod is in a room off the main medical bay, and to an untrained eye it looks more suitable for something more sinister, but Keith knows it is purely practical. A gurney is left on one side of the room, to the other side is a bank of life support equipment that feeds into the tank. A small desk and chair is tucked into the corner with a supply cart. The prosthetic arm lays on top of the cart, deactivated.

Shiro lists in the tank, tilted to his left side slightly. There is a small handful of tubes that run under the thin medical coverall, and a tightly sealed breathing mask obscures the lower half of his face. Transparent patches cover his eyes, but Keith can see the long, dark lashes underneath. Shiro’s chest expands in a set pattern, indicative that the life support system is doing most of the work.

Keith can’t help but look down, to where the gunshot wound is visible as a red blotch on the white fabric, while the medicinal gel seeps through the material of the suit to do it’s magic.

An IV port is visible in Shiro’s left hand, and the tubing snakes up under the suit to where it joins in with the others to trail out as an umbilical.

“Please, sit,” the medic tells him, before he even realizes he is listing to one side. He’s so tired that he lets himself be guided to the chair without protest. He absent mindedly rubs at the last bit of residue from the dressing that covered his ears while he slept for far too long, missing Shiro’s transfer from surgery to the healing chamber.

“He will need at least two more quintants before we can remove him,” the medic tells him. “The level of sedation and analgesic needed to keep him comfortable after surgically repairing the damage from the projectile has compromised his respiratory drive, but his airway is clear and the lung is no longer at risk of collapse. We will continue to monitor but we expect him to begin controlling his own breathing again when we can manage his pain without as strong a dose of medications.”

“Is he dreaming?” Keith wonders out loud. The Altean pods always gave Shiro nightmares, to the point where he regularly avoided the pods altogether. His eyes look up to the thin strip of sensors that line Shiro’s hairline from the temples to behind the ears.

“No, he is too sedated to dream. It is not really sleep, but an induced comatose state. Perhaps when he is better…”

“It’s probably better this way for now,” Keith says, oblivious to the look the medic gives him.

“You also need further treatment,” the medic tells him in a concerned tone. “And rest.”

“My ears were fixed in hours. I just have a headache and sore ribs. He shouldn’t be left alone,” he pleads in a voice that the medic can barely hear.

“He will not be aware of his surroundings for some time. You are more tired and in more pain than you are willing to admit to yourself. When you have recovered a bit more, I promise we will let you back, but first you need to let yourself rest, if not for your own sake, but for his.”

The medic’s gentle hands urge him upright, and he does not have the strength to resist as he is led with stumbling steps back to his stall in the treatment bay. He lays down and a warm cover is laid over him. A new dose of painkillers dulls the headache and he slips again into sleep.

\---

The chronometer reads several vargas later when he next wakes up, but he is shown to a shower to clean up. Someone has gone through his kit bag on the ship, and brought him a set of well worn athletic clothes, softened with use but warm and comfortable. As he gingerly gets dressed, a medic comes to apply a fresh dressing over his abused ribs. The cold gel takes minutes to warm with his body heat, but the numbing effect allows him to carefully take a deep breath for the first time in nearly a day.

He feels much better, but immediately sets out again to where Shiro’s pod is. The room is dark except for the light of the monitors, but the room brightens as Keith pulls the chair up close.

The clear gel around the main wound is now visibly tinged with red, but the monitor readings are all coloured purple, the preferred shade on Galra technology to indicate normal.

The thin medical suit covers most of the body, but leaves little to the imagination. As Keith settles on the chair, hugging the sweatshirt around him, he allows himself to take a long hard look. It is something that he purposely avoided since Shiro literally surprised him in his office just days ago.

He recognized Shiro’s self-consciousness when he first put the Blade suit on - it was obvious enough. Shiro had always struggled with balancing his own discomfort at seeing the injuries, the scars, and what he worried others would think if they saw them.

It was less vanity, but a dysphoria of sorts. And Keith can’t blame him for it.

Keith wonders if it is just his imagination, but thinks he sees Shiro slowly reverting to something closer to his physique from before the fateful mission to Kerberos. When he was young, and fit, but not bulked out due to the demands of the gladiator pits.

Movement in the tank startles him out of his thoughts. It is subtle, but Shiro’s back has arched, and he is sure that the knee is bent more and the fingers on the hand curled up tighter. Wasn’t he supposed to be comatose? He pushes off the chair, and places a hand gingerly on the glass. Shiro’s eyes have been taped shut, presumably to avoid irritation from the medical gel, but the frown line between the eyebrows has appeared as a pucker in the skin.

He presses a call button, and a medic appears within seconds. Keith presses himself to the far corner when he realizes he will be in the way as more medical staff enter. There are hushed conversations about medications, compatibility with humans, and how to correct the calculations for dosages to account for the missing limb. Shiro muscles have gone lax again, but Keith thinks it was because someone ordered an additional dose.

The crowd thins out eventually, and one of the civilian medics, whose race Keith does not recognize, notices him.

“You are his companion?” she asks.

“I wouldn’t use that word,” Keith says, wincing at the term. “He’s… someone that I have known a long time and care about, but he is not my mate. He is married to another person.”

Her head tilts to the side slightly. “I understand,” she says cautiously. “But you are acting as his representative for care? I think this might be a good time to discuss his case. May we find a more suitable place to talk?”

Keith spares a glance at Shiro before resuming eye contact with the medic, but doesn’t protest. By law on Earth, he was not the next of kin, but Keith was reluctant to summon Curtis in light of the situation that lead to Shiro being out here in the first place. He is led to a quiet corner of a mess hall, all but abandoned between meal shifts. The glass of water set in front of him is drained quickly, and he only just realizes how thirsty he was.

“Your friend,” Keith looks up at the medic when she carefully uses another term, “He is healing as we expect. The substance we use works with almost all species, including humans it would seem. But managing his sedation and pain has been challenging.”

“He was a prisoner in the Galra gladiator pits,” Keith says, careful with how much he shares. It is not his place to tell Shiro’s full backstory. “And to make a long story very short, they cloned him and this body is one of those clones. I was not aware of any issues with medications when his prosthetic arm was grafted, but he was not one to talk about that sort of thing if he didn’t think I needed to know.”

“I will be honest with you, his body is metabolizing what we are using to keep him asleep and without pain faster than we expected. It can be challenging to calculate appropriate doses with amputees, yet this is more difficult in his case than normal. We hope to continue the treatment for at least one more full quintant, but if he continues to almost regain consciousness, we may have to pull him sooner. It will mean a longer recovery.”

Keith sits there numbly. “He was not supposed to be here,” he mutters, more to himself than anything.

“Pardon?”

“He was not meant to be out here. He retired, left war and exploring other planets all behind. I put him into danger, and he tried to save me. Again.”

The medic gives a knowing but cautious smile. “Yet here you both are. Yes, he will take time to recover, but your friend is alive. As are you.”

“I need to figure out how I will return him to our home planet. My ship is not equipped with a medical bay.”

“I will have the lead medical officer discuss it with the commander of the vessel. As a senior Blade, you have the authority to change our orders, as was done when we were diverted to this system. But most of our crew is now on the planet and dealing with the aftermath of the incident.”

“No, I won’t divert this ship,” Keith scrubs at his face. “But I will probably have to go place a priority subspace call.”


	4. What Does the Future Hold?

“Atlas actual, here.”

“Veronica, nice to see you again.” Keith gives a wan smile that is a pure bluff that he just hopes she doesn’t call. At least right away. “I was happy to hear that you finally accepted the promotion.”

“Keith, nice to hear from you again. It took a while but they finally convinced me to do it. Unfortunately I get the sense that this isn’t a happy call.”

“The long distance bill is a little steep for a pleasure call, I’m afraid,” he tries to joke.

Her eyebrow raises a touch. “I guess I should cut to the chase then. What can I help you with?"

“Uh, this is about Shiro.”

She looks at him with confusion. “Isn’t he on Earth? Last I heard, Curtis got a new posting.”

“Funny about that, no, he’s out here with me.”

The shocked look on her face is genuine. “What? Really? It’s not even close to the anniversary, why would he be making the trip early…”

“Oh, we aren’t even close to New Altea, or Earth. And that is sort of the problem. Mom sent him on a trip out to see me -” he takes a deep breath “- but he got injured on our way back to Earth. I’m sending you coordinates now.”

“Oh no,” Veronica. “Is it-”

“No. He should, sorry, will be okay. But he needs to be home. And my ship doesn’t have the medical equipment we need.”

“You need us to come and get him,” she fills in the blanks. “You know there will be questions, Keith.”

“I know, I know. And honestly, I don’t know how I will answer those yet. But having doctors familiar with humans would help at this point, and the Blades have neither the means to provide that or to get him home.”

“Where is Curtis?”

“I assume on Earth,” Keith says, flustered. “They sort of, I dunno, separated? Just before Mom lobbed Shiro on me.”

Veronica went through the academy with both Shiro and Curtis, but she knows better than to comment. “Does he even know?”

“You’re the first person from the Garrison I called,” he replies, answering but not answering the question.

“I see,” her tone is cautious. He sees her pull up something on a monitor off the view he has of her office. The office Shiro had and that Keith had spent time talking about tactics in. “I have to clear it as an emergency mission, Keith. At best, a day before we can come.”

“He has at least another day before they can release him from the healing pod anyways.”

“A healing pod? Like that one we never managed to get working again from the castle?”

“Not quite, but similar enough in how it is used. Galra tech.”

“Oh.”

“But the medical team here might benefit from seeing his recent medical files. Since, well, you know.”

“For the clone. Gotcha.”

“He is having issues with some of the medications, and it is hard to know if it is just not well calibrated for human physiology.”

“Of course. I’ll see what I can get for you.”

“Thank you,” he tells her, and the connection cuts off.

\---

Armed with a set of files on approved-for-humans medications, he sits vigil while the medical team continue to do their thing. The different analgesics appear to work better, and last longer. It was confirmation that it was probably more an issue with using drugs designed for other species, and Keith only protests a little when they kick him out to eat and sleep.

To be honest, he has gotten restless. Too used to working all day, every day, only to collapse into bed for a stolen nap. It probably wasn’t healthy, but it kept him occupied. Too busy to think about things beyond the next mission or next planet to save.

Too busy to obsess over a person he just had to trust was happy and whole, back on Earth. Except Shiro wasn’t.

The morning comes too soon, and the awkward vigil resumes as they begin to wean off the sedatives. Within an hour, Shiro’s body begins to stretch and twitch in the now thoroughly discoloured gel. Eventually, the pod shifts to lay horizontally, and the majority of the gel is drained away. A pair of medics rinse away the residue with warm water, and the thin white suit is peeled away so they can clean him from head to toe.

Shiro begins to cough every minute or so, and when he is lifted onto the gurney lined with absorbent towels, he shivers for a moment before he’s covered and the oxygen line hooked up to a portable supply for the short trip to the main treatment bay.

There, Keith can finally hold Shiro’s hand, which is still pruned from the prolonged time in the tank. The protective patches covering his eyes are peeled off, and the mask is replaced by a loose fitting one, the bite guard between the teeth removed and discarded.

The wound on the chest is covered in bright pink skin, tender and new, but healed over. This, unlike most of Shiro’s other many wounds, will probably not scar. Keith is glad, because Shiro does not need another reminder of his close calls with mortality to adorn him.

Keith lets go to allow the medical staff to cover him in a soft patient gown and be settled into the bed. The myriad of biosensors are reduced to a few that spot his chest, and the IV in the hand is replaced by a new one in the forearm.

Shiro sleeps in a cocoon of warm blankets for hours still. At one point, the oxygen mask is swapped for a nasal cannula, and someone brings in a fresh pitcher of cool water. The prosthetic arm lays on the bedside table, waiting to be paired up with the shoulder port.

Keith is reading reports from a datapad when Shiro rolls onto his side without warning, then settles back into deep sleep without waking. The medic did say that it could take some time for him to wake. The induced coma did not replace real sleep, the kind that could do far more healing than another day in the healing tank could.

Keith could be patient. Shiro needed him to be.

It is nearly the late afternoon for the settlement the ship has used as the reference point for its geosynchronous orbit. The medical staff look at Keith and tell him that he should get some rest, but Shiro keeps nearly waking, and he does not want to be away when he finally does.

Shiro’s settled again on his back when he does wake. Tired, grey eyes crack open, and he pushes the blanket away to free it so he can rub at them.

Keith lowers the side rail on the bed, and pours some water, placing a straw in that he sets on Shiro’s chapped lip. Almost instinctively, Shiro drinks a few sips at first, then tries to drain the glass before Keith takes it away with warnings to take it easy.

“You’re okay,” Shiro breathes out, exhausted but relieved. “They tried to....”

“Shh, I know,” Keith replies. “They tried. But did not succeed.”

They talk quietly for another quarter hour, mostly Keith affirming he was alright and that Shiro would be too, before he lets the medical staff come in and begin their assessments. He lays there clearly cold, until someone takes pity on him and covers him with an additional warm blanket.

Eventually Shiro is asleep again, too tired to stay awake.

The medical staff are happy with what they see, but warn that he will need assistance and monitoring for at least another few movements, now that he was cleared to return to Earth. Keith finally caves to the medic’s silent pressure, and leaves Shiro to rest.

\----

From the small room he was assigned, he is woken up in the middle of the night by a comm message. The Atlas has just arrived. Their ship time is offset from this one, so they are already eager to transfer Shiro over.

Keith quickly dresses in his spare senior Blade suit, pulling the few belongings that were brought off his vessel into the bag. Making his way to the hangar, he can see one of the shuttles from the Atlas land, and he quickly drops his things off in his own ship, that has been checked over since it’s frantic flight from the planet surface.

Veronica, looking good with the additional stripe on her shoulder, has just stepped off the shuttle, along with a small team of medical staff that offload a gurney with equipment. When she spots Keith, she walks over without hesitation and gives him a firm hug. “I’m glad to see you,” she tells him earnestly.

He wraps his arms around her back and tries his best to return the gesture. “He woke up about 8 hours ago.”

“And he’s…?” her question goes unfinished but the meaning is clear.

“Going to be fine, but he is tired more than anything.”

She nods, knowing that sometimes that’s the best you can expect.

“Let’s go get him back to the Atlas.”

\----

The transfer itself is uneventful. Shiro wakes when Veronica arrives, and although he is clearly still exhausted, manages to stay awake for the hushed conversation that follows. From Keith’s vantage point from outside the treatment area, he knows that Veronica is asking if she should be contacting Curtis. Based on Shiro’s pained expression and curt head shake, he opts not to for the time being.

The medical staff from both ships spend an hour or so in a conference room exchanging information, while one human medic begins to swap out the biosensors and other limited medical equipment for Earth versions. Others are not replaced - he no longer needs supplemental oxygen. The room looks crowded with stuff, but when the others come back, the gurney is ready to go.

The IV bag is hung from the pole, and it takes six of them to lift him by the bed sheet onto the thermal cover that is zipped up over him. A couple straps secure him for the trip, and they move to the shuttle.

Keith sees them load Shiro in, and then moves over to his own to power it up for the short trip to the Atlas. He doesn’t know how soon they will start the trip back to Earth, but he will need his personal ship eventually.

For the first time in years, he realizes that the prospect of going back to Earth is tinged with happy thoughts, and not dread.

When he arrives in the other hangar, he steps off his ship with a small bag of Shiro’s toiletries and a battered sweatshirt that may have been ‘altered’ by Shiro himself, the right arm simply cut off at the seam and a couple little snips to allow for it to be pulled over the shoulder.

He is shown to the med bay by a junior officer he does not recognize, but is too polite to insist that he knows how to make the trip on his own. Stepping through the threshold, he can see Shiro getting settled on the bed in the far corner. He hands over the bag to a nurse, along with Shiro’s glasses.

She takes his comm info and promises to call when it is a good time to return.

\----

There is a particular way each ship hums, Keith has discovered. And being on the Atlas again is strangely soothing. Although he had not been on board for a long time, it was nostalgic and comforting, from the layout to the food served in the mess.

After leaving Shiro in the midst of an examination by the Earth doctors, he finds himself in a rec room in front of one of the few large viewports on the ship. The scenery shifts in front of them. A wormhole is due to open in a couple hours, taking them from this system back to Earth.

Soon, they will be back home.

For the crew of the Atlas, it may only be a short layover before they leave again, spearheading the work of the coalition to monitor the remains of the Galra military. Veronica is busy, approving supply requisitions and the odd personnel transfer. She knows the Atlas may not be back again for a long time.

A monitor near him flickers Altean teal for a brief moment, before reverting to the Garrison orange. Keith looks around, startled but the room is empty due to an impending shift change, so he is alone to wonder if he simply imagined it.

Shiro’s connection to this ship was special, akin to the bond each of them had with the lions. It did manifest in odd ways, and although Shiro would never admit to it, Keith always knew if he was communicating with the ship in that way.

He makes his way back towards the medical bay, nodding to the nurses as he makes his way to the treatment bay tucked in the back. One tells him that Shiro just woke up again. Pushing the curtain aside a little, he comes to a stop next to the bed.

Shiro is sitting upright, propped up with a few extra pillows. The arm is activated for the first time since the day of the incident. The glasses that Keith isn't convince that Shiro actually needs are perched on his nose, partially hiding the scar. He looks up from the data pad he is reading from, and smiles.

“Hey,” Keith calls out as he pulls the padded chair closer to the side of the bed. “Finally woke from your nap I see.”

“I didn’t really mean to fall asleep right after they were done poking and prodding me, but the flight surgeon did say he would be surprised if I wasn’t tired most of the time for the next week or so.” If to prove a point, Shiro lets out a long yawn, then scrubs at his face. Keith can hear the coarse stubble scratch again the material of the prosthetic hand.

“This might be a weird question,” Keith starts, hesitating a bit. “Do you still, you know, feel the Atlas?”

Shiro gives a funny look, but breaks into an embarrassed smile. “Yes and no?” he replies. “It is not overt like it once was, but strangely enough, when I sleep I feel like I can feel the ship’s presence in my mind again. Like she has moved on but still wants to watch over me. I don’t know how else to put it.”

“It never replaces the lions though, does it?”

“No,” Shiro agrees. “It never does.”

The two of them sit there for a while, contemplative and quiet. Shiro has an almost sad demeanor, and Keith has nearly broken the silence when the older man speaks up.

“I’ve missed this,” Shiro says. “I miss space. Not always knowing exactly what I would do the next day. Exploring, learning. I was so tired for so long, but now that I have been away from it, I think this is what I always needed to do.”

“Your destiny was always in the stars,” Keith tells him, understanding.

Shiro shifts further to the side of the bed, and makes a motion to Keith. He makes an amused chuckle, but hops on to the edge of the bed, and their shoulders touch.

It feels like old times.

“Shiro,” Keith’s voice hitches. “I have never felt like I could say this out loud, but I want you to know that you mean the world to me. You always believed in me, and I never deserved it. My greatest fear has always been that I failed you.”

“Keith,” Shiro whispers, pulling him closer. “You are so important to me. I have always known you would do great things. Of course I believed in you. Still believe in you.”

“You were hurt trying to save me,” he laments.

“And yet you saved me, again.” Shiro makes that odd laugh that Keith knows is a prelude to his weird brand of dark self-deprecating humour. “It seems like we’ve always needed to save each other. As many times as it takes, right?”

Keith theatrically rolls his eyes and pushes away from Shiro’s side with a playful shove at the shoulder.

“Honestly Keith,” Shiro says, smile fading in favour of a thoughtful expression, “I don’t know what the future will bring, and there is so much that I need to consider. But I can promise that I want to be there for you, if and when you need it. And I am sorry if you didn’t always feel that was true.”

“Can you answer one thing for me? What do you want, Shiro?”

“A purpose. A future.”

Keith’s expression is also thoughtful. “You know that I want to support you no matter what, right?”

“Of course, Keith.”

“Then promise me that you will never compromise on your happiness. When you know what you want to do, let me know.”


	5. Epilogue: The Future is Ours to Write

“Shiro, good to hear from you again.”

Keith’s smile is warm enough that Shiro swears that he can feel it through the screen. He had left Shiro behind on Earth to return to the planet, determined to see the renewed efforts towards peace progressing.

It had been a long month, since returning to Earth. Although his physical recovery was fairly quick, the reunion with his husband was less smooth.

Shiro could not blame him for being angry. Angry that Shiro left Earth without warning. Angry that he was not called when the Atlas was summoned. Angry that Shiro, instead of promising to try and make their broken relationship work, had made arrangements for a short term lease on a place close to the Garrison’s base in the desert. The separation became formal.

Retirement had been a relief at first, Shiro admits to himself from the comfort of the warm kotatsu that he arranged to have brought from the house he and Curtis bought together. But if anything from his little adventure taught him, it was that he belonged out there, among the stars. And now, more than ever, he knew who he wanted to do that with.

The dreams from childhood of flying and exploring had never really gone away. But he wanted to do it on his own terms. And now was the time.

“You know what, I think I will take you up on that offer, Keith. Where should I report for my trials?”

**Author's Note:**

> This has been a wild month an a half, and I feel like I left a trail of half formed WIPs behind me to get to this. I had started with another concept altogether, but after losing my writing mojo due to a family member passing away in January and the subsequent real life drama, I eventually decided to start from scratch and felt that pursuing what I felt would be a realistic scenario between Shiro and Keith that didn't totally toss all of the ending to VLD out the window would also make help me reconcile some questions I wanted to answer for myself. 
> 
> Psy, I wish I had a little more time to flesh this out further, but I didn't want to deliver your gift too late. But I did try to incorporate a little bit of bodyguard AU into this, I hope you enjoy!


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